The Press

The Press is a daily newspaper published in Christchurch, New Zealand. In the 1970s and 1980s it was published by the Christchurch Press Company Ltd, whose registered office was "The Christchurch Press Company's building in Cathedral Square"; in December 1984 the Commerce Commission cleared the company to acquire shares in another business.¹

The Stokowski Affair

Between 1981 and 1986 the paper reported the progress and collapse of Chemical Technology Limited, the whey-to-ethanol company at Clandeboye near Temuka whose American director, Dr Stanley Stokowski, was the fugitive R.C. Horsch. Its reports included the 1981 licensing of the distillery, the opening of the plant by Ian Shearer in 1982, the police search after Stokowski fled in March 1984, and the feature "Where has 'Dr Stokowski' gone?" of June 9, 1984, for which its San Francisco correspondent, John Hutchison, reached the real Dr Stanley Edward Stokowski, then working at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.²³⁴⁵ In October 1984 it reported the statement of the Minister of Immigration, Kerry Burke, identifying the impostor as Raymond Charles Hoersch.⁶

The paper was also the first to report, on December 10, 1981, the contents of a briefcase mislaid by an officer of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service.⁷